Wheat prices jumped by the daily limit on the Chicago Board of Trade yesterday as forecasts for more dry weather caused increased concerns about supply.

Wheat led the Commodity Research Bureau index, which rose to an eight-year high for the fifth consecutive session. The index of 17 commodities rose 3.09 points, to 258.91 -- its largest one-day gain in more than a year.

Grain prices rose after Accu-Weather Inc., a forecasting firm, said that an approaching weather system would leave just six-tenths of an inch of rain in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas and that rainfall after that would be below normal.

Gasoline inventories fell 1.85 million barrels, to 201.8 million barrels, last week as demand rose, the American Petroleum Institute said after the market closed on Tuesday. It was the third weekly decline; gasoline stockpiles are now 5.4 percent below last year.

May gasoline jumped 2.47 cents, to 72.99 cents a gallon, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest price since May 9, 1991. May crude oil rose $1.15, to $24.21 a barrel.